- “Lie to People Who Want to be Lied to”: How to Make a Political Fortune as a Far-Left Democrat
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“A financial journalist once offered simple advice: ‘Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich … Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.’ That axiom appears to have been taken to heart by radical Democratic candidates who this week issued transparent denials of past outrageous comments. Their calculus is clearly that the last thing that voters want to hear is the truth about their past views. Certain cultural touchstones are considered inviolate in some states, such as beef in Texas. … Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico was roasted after a video surfaced of his calling to reduce meat consumption and ‘I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses’.” (08/08/26)
- The power of honesty in AI research
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“As the global race to create the most advanced artificial intelligence continues to heat up, the list of concerns about AI’s impact – from the wiping out of jobs to its potential to make planet-altering decisions without human intervention – grows long. Nations are rushing to decide which values to impose on what could be the 21st century’s greatest mold-breaking technology. First, AI’s creators themselves must decide whether to abide by one key value: honesty. Or rather, the potency of honesty to bring creativity and, yes, the highest intelligence, to AI. For too many AI firms, building a frontier model by imitating a rival’s training data, explanations, and reasoning has been the norm. This style of theft, known as distillation, is often driven by impatience, fear of competitive failure, or doubts about one’s own ingenuity.” (08/07/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0807/The-power-of-honesty-in-AI-research
- Stop Blaming the Climate for Wildfires We Can Prevent
Source: Town Hall
by Frank Lasee“As wildfires ravage southwestern France this July, forcing more than 220,000 people from their homes in the Gironde region near Bordeaux and burning some 42,000 hectares (162 sq. miles) of forest, the familiar refrain returns: climate change is to blame. France is now enduring its worst fire season on record. Extreme heat and drought clearly worsen conditions. But blaming climate alone hides more immediate, controllable causes: human ignition, fuel buildup, and forest management choices that turn landscapes into tinderboxes. French authorities have detained well over 160 people since early July for suspected arson or reckless fire-starting. Officials say nine in 10 fires have human origins, whether deliberate or careless, from discarded cigarettes to illegal machinery and fireworks. … Matches and carelessness light most fires. Weather merely fans them.” (08/08/26)
- Who Is “Authentically Working Class?”
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert Jensen“Most politicians pledge to work for the working class, or sometimes for working families, a less Marxist-sounding label. Meanwhile, scholars struggle to define the category. I won’t assess the political posturing or adjudicate definitional disputes, but my work experience (spanning six decades and a wide variety of jobs) illustrates why the claims of working-class authenticity that are prized in today’s politics are so fraught. Once upon a time, the working class was understood as people in capitalist economies who don’t own the means of production and must sell their labor to owners. But as economies grew more complex, anomalies piled up. What about managers who aren’t owners but make lots of money doing the bidding of owners? What about technical employees whose specialized skills give them bargaining power? What about small-business owners of modest means who hire employees?” (08/08/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/who-is-the-working-class
- Mamdani’s faux African accent as telling as it is bizarre
Source: Fox News Forum
by David Marcus“In a resurfaced 2016 interview, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks for the entire time in an African/South Asian accent that sounds like a mix between Trevor Noah and Apu from ‘The Simpsons’. It is absolutely bizarre, but it is also telling. At the time, he was promoting a Disney movie that he had worked on as a dance advisor, one of the few actual jobs hizzoner has ever held. His signature smile is on display, but when he opens his lips, he sounds like someone we have never heard. In a sing-songy voice, he decries how in Africa everybody dances, but in New York the men ‘just grind’ but don’t dance. It is a performance entirely in character.” (08/08/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-mamdanis-faux-african-accent-telling-bizarre
- Dems’ Dilemma, From the Mountains to the Prairies
Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner“On Tuesday, Julian Beaudion, the Democratic Senate nominee challenging South Dakota Republican incumbent Mike Rounds, dropped out in favor of independent Brian Bengs. This followed similar actions in Idaho and Nebraska. In Idaho last week, Democratic nominee David Roth stood aside in favor of Todd Achilles, a former Democratic state legislator and an Army veteran, who is running as an independent against Republican Sen. Jim Risch. Both Bengs and Achilles are long shots. Bengs was trounced when he ran as a Democrat against John Thune in 2022. And Idaho, one of the nation’s most Republican states, last sent a Democrat to the Senate, Frank Church, in 1974. Church was defeated in the 1980 GOP landslide, as was South Dakota’s George McGovern.” (08/07/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/07/dems-dilemma-from-mountains-to-prairies/
- How Scottish Dissent Built American Liberty
Source: Law & Liberty
by DG Hart“Presbyterians played a large role in teaching North America the value of political independence.” (08/07/26)
https://lawliberty.org/how-scottish-dissent-built-american-liberty/
- Our children are failed by an education system that doesn’t care, and teacher unions are to blame
Source: New York Post
by Jennifer Weber & Danyela Souza Egorov“New York spends more per student than any state in the nation. Yet fewer than half off of its third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students scored proficiently on the English Language Arts exam, according to the preliminary data released this week. Just 43% of third-graders, 48% of fourth-graders and 43% of fifth-graders scored proficient in ELA. The biggest drop was seen in fifth grade, a 14-point decrease from the 2024-25 school year. Third-graders showed an 11-point drop. This is what happens when teacher unions get their way. Standards are lowered. No consequences for bad schools or bad instructors. And our children? Failed by a system that doesn’t care. As of 2019, state test scores would no longer play a role in teacher evaluations. By 2024, nor would any measure of whether students learned at all.” (08/08/26)
- Socialism Is Anti-Social
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman“British individualist Auberon Herbert (1838-1907) minced no words when he spoke against socialism. After demolishing the notion that a ‘social entity’ exists separately from the individuals who comprise it, he concluded his debate with J. A. Hobson by writing something that today’s socialists might ponder. He began with the bluntest of assertions: ‘The truth is, that the socialist, unknown to himself, is the most antisocial of all human beings, and, if he had his way, would render all true social action impossible.’ Could he back that charge up? Let’s see.” (08/07/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-auberon-herbert-individualist
- The Declaration and Dinesh D’Souza’s “Revisionist History”
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter“Mainstream conservatives often view themselves as sworn enemies of ‘revisionist history,’ being against books like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Doubtless, conservative author, commentator, and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza would also describe himself as an enemy of ‘revisionist history.’ For example, in promotion of one of his films, D’Souza appeared on the Rush Limbaugh show where the headline read: ‘Rush Limbaugh Show: Dinesh D’Souza Debunks Liberal Revisionist History.’ Ironically and unfortunately, when it comes to the Declaration of Independence, D’Souza is a perpetrator and promoter of bad revisionist history.” (08/07/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/declaration-and-dinesh-dsouzas-revisionist-history
- Fauci’s the Focal Point
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Senator Rand Paul ‘has it in’ for Fauci — said Dr. Anthony Fauci at last week’s Senate hearing.
The former director of the NIAID and former Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden made it sound like the Kentucky senator was trying to put him in prison. But what Dr. Paul asked of Dr. Fauci was an apology — not jail-time. Why, though? ‘If we don’t want this to happen again, him acknowledging that he was wrong to fund this research will be a word of caution and warning to the next generation of people to come through,’ the senator told Mark Halperin.” (08/07/26)https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/08/07/faucis-the-focal-point/
- Make No Mistake, the Left [sic] is on a Winning Streak
Source: In These Times
by Branko Marcetic“Something has shifted among the Democratic electorate. That was already clear from Zohran Mamdani’s trouncing of establishment royalty Andrew Cuomo in the New York mayoral race last year …. it was clear from the primary election in Maine, where Democratic voters rejected their own governor in favor of a left-populist firebrand dogged by scandals who had never held political office. But the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan over the Israel lobby – backed centrist Rep. Haley Stevens may eclipse even these as both a victory for the broad Left and for anyone who genuinely cares about democracy. No candidate has been outspent to the degree El-Sayed was and still won, however narrowly, with Stevens’s nine-to-one advantage in outside spending funding an endless torrent of TV ads touting a nonexistent endorsement from former President Barack Obama and scurrilously attacking El-Sayed.” (08/07/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/abdul-el-sayed-donovan-mckinney-michigan-bernie-sanders-left-aipac
- Get the Feds Out of Curriculum Decisions
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kerry McDonald“It is fully within a state legislature’s purview to enact new curriculum policies for public schools in response to constituents’ concerns. It is, however, not within the purview of the federal government. The federal government has no constitutional role in education. Education is not listed among the enumerated powers granted to the federal government by the US Constitution. Any authority around education policy belongs with the states. That is why current efforts to close the US Department of Education, which opened in 1980, or to diminish its role are commendable.” (08/07/26)
https://fee.org/articles/get-the-feds-out-of-curriculum-decisions/
